


Fireflies

by ffairyy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Confessions, Crushes, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-War, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22161628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffairyy/pseuds/ffairyy
Summary: When Harry spends his fifth christmas after the war with the Weasleys he finds George sitting by the little rivulet outside the burrow, practicing a simple firefly spell all by himself.
Relationships: Harry Potter/George Weasley
Comments: 16
Kudos: 233





	Fireflies

**Author's Note:**

> I recently (accidentally, sigh) fell in love with this ship and now I'm inspired to write for them, cause they're the sweetest :')
> 
> **Warning:** some grief and depression, mentions of the war & they talk about Fred, but it's very fluffy too

Harry stands there in the open field like frozen for minutes, and watches George. It’s probably a private moment he’s witnessing, a lonely and quiet, private moment. The only noise is coming from the wind dancing through the corn around him.

He found George sitting on a big log by the rivulet far behind the cornfield, where he lets little fireflies appear with a lazy flick of his wand, one after the other. They’re abuzz and fluttery and glow so brightly in the pitch black night, so alive, but only for few short moments, before they vanish and leave only the memory of light behind.

Like in a trance George keeps bringing new ones to life as soon as the old ones die out.   
Never letting it get too dark.

It’s then, after five years of watching him grieve, that harry thinks, maybe George is never going to be himself again. Not wholly. 

In a strange and maybe inappropriate way this thought makes relief and calm settle in his chest. 

Because the world would make a lot less sense to him if something as huge, something as brutal and life altering, something as painful and terrifying as war, as losing loved ones, wouldn’t leave its scars and traces. If he was the only one who made it to the other side of the war, just so, coming out a wreck of a person.  
  


Peace has been hanging over their heads now like a veil for years, and sometimes it seems to be mocking him throughout the day with its brightness, because when Harry closes his eyes at night, the war is still raging in all its absurdity and gore. And some of the people he lost (those he misses so deeply that it threatens to tear him apart at night), he can’t ever meet again without going right back into the midst of the war.

It’s a comforting sight, George in the middle of a mild winter night, wide awake, casting spells he learned in his second year at Hogwarts.   
  


“Are you planning to come over or do you want to keep staring?” George’s voice startles him out of his trance. There’s no malice in it though, just a bone deep kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with the hour of night.  
Before he gets his answer, he has turned back around to go back to his firefly spells.

“I didn’t mean to be here,” Harry gets out as he walks over to the log and plops down on it at a safe distance to George. “I mean, i _did_ mean to be here but i expected to be alone.” 

The words don’t come out quite how they’re supposed to, but George looks at him with a smile that’s equal parts amused and understanding.

“Would you rather be alone?” he asks without taking his eyes off the swirling fireflies that bathe their faces and the tall grass around them in a golden-orange glow.

“No, I’d hate it actually. It’s good to see you.”  
  
Harry notices how easy it is to be sincere with George who’s always been sincere, always honest in his own way, but never quite open these days, not when he’s surrounded by his big, bustling family, who still, after all these years, treat him like a raw egg, despite how much they try not to. It pains Harry to watch, because he knows it all too well. 

The worried whispers and glances when he was still the chosen one and carried the burden of the whole wizarding world on his shoulders. The way voices got softer and eyes pitiful whenever he walked into a room. It’s unnerving, especially in contrast to the very real pain and danger he was constantly facing.

He started looking at George, _really_ looking, three, maybe four years ago when he’d come out of the darkest phase after the war, the half dead and isolated during the day and plagued by nightmares during the night phase.

He started looking at George because he saw so much of himself in him, but he kept looking for endless more reasons. The reasons seem to multiply the longer he looks and maybe he hasn’t come out here tonight expecting to be alone at all.   
  
If he has been lying awake when he heard the door of the twins’ childhood room open and heard George tiptoe down the stairs, then nobody needs to know.

If he’s been looking out the window of Percy’s old room to see George walking across the field and to the little river in pyjamas pants and a parker and felt the urge to go after him, then nobody has proof of that.

Now they sit in silence for a while and Harry enjoys the emptiness of his mind. With George next to him, he feels safe to relax without getting swarmed by cruel thoughts or overwhelming feelings. He can just be and watch the reflection of the fireflies create little dances in the river.  
  


“Are you cold?” George asks him at some point, nodding down to the wool jacket hanging over Harry’s shoulder. This year’s christmas present from Molly.

“I’m okay,” he says instinctively despite the tension in his muscles and all the hair standing up on his arms and legs.

“You’re the absolute worst liar, Harry Potter,” George huffs. “Your teeth are clattering.”  
  


And Harry’s cheeks get a little warm, because that’s one of the things that make him keep looking at George. This warmth in his teasing, this gentleness. 

How he’s never used sarcasm to mask insecurity, but just because it’s fun. He’s never had trouble being genuine. 

It makes Harry ache with joy sometimes, to see George have these little happy moments. Genuine and mischievous and all real.

“I’m freezing my goddamn bum off actually.” Harry laughs and stares ahead into the water.

He only looks back up when the glow around them dies and the last fireflies evaporate. Darkness wraps itself around them. 

Harry thinks George is about to cast a warmth spell, but he simply sets his wand aside on the log and instead pulls down the zipper of his parker, strips it off his shoulders and hangs it around Harry’s, as if that’s something wizards just do.

It makes him stumble on a breath and he’s groping around for a teasing remark but there’s nothing. He only gets out a bashful, croaky “thanks”.

“It’s selfish, really.” George chuckles, “Can’t risk you abandoning me to go back inside where it’s warm and cozy.”  
  


Harry smiles, but there’s something terribly vulnerable in George’s voice that keeps him from laughing. It does feel like this sometimes. Like the war is won and they, the survivors, have been abandoned. Left behind by those who fell during it and slowly forgotten by everyone who’s moving on.  
  


“What about the fireflies?” Harry asks. The darkness is more comfortable than it’s ever been at Grimmauld Place when he can’t sleep at night and walks rounds through kitchen and living room with just a lumos spell to keep him company. Still he can’t move out.

George is quiet for a while, contemplating. And Harry just wanted to know if he’s going to cast another spell, bring them back to life, but he’s not gonna say that now.

Not when George looks like he’s gathering strength to talk.

“When we were kids, Fred, he— sometimes he stole Dad’s wand. It made him furious obviously and made Mum nearly faint on several occasions, to the point where they locked their wands away, but— well, I have no idea if it was a spell he found out about somehow or if that was just the sort of magic that naturally spilled out of him, but every time Fred stole Dad’s wand, he made these, these little fireflies for me. Just one or two at a time and they didn’t last long, but little me thought they were the most brilliant thing in the world.”

Harry nods, a soft smile on his lips, and looks over to George. He’s smiling too, a real smile, a little sad. 

“Hell, I’m a grown man and i still think they’re the most brilliant thing in the world.”   
  


“Little Fred and George must have been a handful,” Harry gets out, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I would’ve loved to know them.”

“They would’ve loved to have another little brother to annoy,” he replies easily.  
“It was always them against the world,” he continues, less easily. “They were so sure they’d grow old and grey together.” 

Harry’s chest aches, imagining it. Two little twin brothers taking on the world, promising to stay together for all of eternity, on a mission to make the world a brighter place. 

Now what’s left is the memory of that brightness and a dimmed, leftover light struggling to stay aflame. Still so bright though, Harry thinks. 

He’d make sure it keeps burning and glowing and will protect it from any storm. Maybe that’s just his saviour complex acting up, always itching to protect people and seek for the Right Thing to do. More likely it’s that George makes him feel less alone, less insane in his healing process and more alive, too. One of the very few people who still see the real Harry through all the trauma and fame.

More likely it’s that he likes looking at George in the quiet in between moments of days when he’s watching his family banter at the dinner table and has the most reverent expression on his face. Or when he’s de-gnoming the garden with Ginny and tries to draw details about her and Luna’s developing relationship out of her while Ginny ignores him professionally and looks wonderfully smug about her secrets. 

He likes listening when the Weasleys share memories about Fred, and George casually corrects them about the details because he’s always been right next to him, always been closest.  
And sometimes it inspires him to take over and tell a story himself and sometimes it makes him smile nowadays. Which in succession always makes Harry’s chest bloom with fondness. 

“Sometimes i worry I’m talking too much about him.” George admits quietly to the night. 

“Are you kidding?” harry says, a little loud in the quiet night. “That’s a good thing! So much better than when you couldn’t talk about him at all.”

“Yeah,” George huffs. “Don’t remind me. I’m currently trying to suppress that whole first year.”

“It always looks like they love to see you talking about Fred. He gave us plenty to talk about after all.”

George laughs at that, looking at Harry in the dark, a sparkle in his eyes. “He really did, didn’t he?!”

They grin at each other for a moment, a little overwhelmed with the sudden laughter and love for Fred in their chests, before George turns straight ahead to look at the rivulet again, a bit breathless.  
  


“He’s not all i think about, you know?”

Harry doesn’t know what to say so he waits and ignores the funny feeling in his stomach that tends to appear with George’s laughter and joy nowadays. He’s watching him from the side now, watches him nibble on his bottom lip, a nervous habit harry has noticed a while ago.

“I think about the shop, about a new product line of pet toys I’m planning right now, about how unacceptable it is that Ron is gonna marry before me, about whether Ginny and Luna are an actual thing or if it’s just one of Ginny’s elaborate pranks, which, to be fair, i have no right to complain about and— and i think about you, Harry. Most of the time if I’m being completely honest.”

Harry’s heart picks up speed and he has trouble forming words.

“About me?” he croaks.

George hums and goes on without tearing his gaze away from the night sky where a few scattered stars look back down to them.

“It’s probably gonna sound silly, but every Friday when you help out at the shop, it’s so much more fun there, it’s what gets me through the week. And I started enjoying family gatherings again despite how straining they can be. Because I know you’ll be there.”

Harry catches himself smiling foolishly down onto his own feet, his heart fluttering like a young fairy’s wings.

“I had no idea it would be you—“George muses. “Who’d unlock this in me. To make it feel like maybe enjoying life might be possible again.”

George hums, and glances shortly over to Harry, a nervous smile. “Nearly feel bad about it towards Freddie, but he’d understand.”

“What exactly would he understand?” Harry asks courageously after a long, nervous moment, and George finally looks at him properly. 

“He’d take one look at me and see me talk an awfully lot and he’d know immediately that i have it bad for you.” He says, and now it’s Harry who can’t keep the eye contact, his cheeks flushing warm. “And then he’d never let me hear the end of it.”  
  
Harry is still not looking at George when he says, “It was strange for me to come to these family dinners, too. Especially the first two years or so. With Hermione and Ron, and _Ginny_ back then. I wasn’t sure where to fit in anymore, not that I don’t enjoy their presence.”

“But things changed.” George hums. And Harry nods, thankful.

He thinks of all the times George and his eyes had met over the dinner table, a quiet, mutual understanding of how Weird things were. He remembers all the times George found him trapped next to Ginny and Luna on the couch and conveniently needed to show him some new Wheezes inventions in his room. All the times they’d saved each other from embarrassing situations, lovey-dovey couples or comforted each other through heavy topics the others had been talking about.

How, over the years, they’d started gravitating towards each other in search for comfort.

“Are you gonna say something about the other thing I mentioned,” George starts with fake casualness. “The thing I said about how I maybe, possibly have a giant, embarrassing crush on you?! Are we gonna discuss that at all, or-”

“I was getting there,” Harry laughs, shoving playfully at George’s shoulder.

“Sorry, my bad.” George zips his mouth shut and throws the nonexistent key into the water.

“I don’t know how to say this,” Harry sighs. “I saw you walking out here by yourself in the middle of the night, and I couldn’t stay away. I wanted to be with you. Always do. Does that answer your question?”

George looks at him with that raw kind of sincerity that always catches Harry of guard and smiles a relieved, hopeful thing at him. His legs bouncing slightly, the way they do.

“I don’t want you to stay away,” he says and softly pats the space between them on the log. Harry shuffles over to sit closer to George, with his chest so full and warm.

“What about Ron? He’s gonna lose his mind.” Harry cringes at the mere thought of his best friend finding out.

“If he managed to get over you and Ginny, he can get over, well, whatever this is.” He awkwardly waves a hand between them. “You seem to have a thing for Weasleys, it’s a miracle you and Ron never tried snogging.”

“Well, there was this thing in fourth year-“

“Shut _up_!” George stares at him in horror and Harry dissolves into chuckles. The air between them feels tons lighter.

“I’m just kidding you,” he grins. “But you should’ve seen your face!”

“You’re gonna be the death of me, Boy Who Lived. Do you really want to take it up with a professional prankster? I might’ve gotten older, but I still have it in me, y’know?”

Harry, still laughing, raises an eyebrow and realizes how close they’re sitting now. He can feel George’s warmth where their shoulders and thighs touch each other.

“I don’t doubt that for a second,” he says, the jocular air out of his lungs and something smoother, more curious in his voice. “Would never start a prank war with an ace like you.” 

He smiles and makes the mistake to look over at George, finding him looking right back at him with fond eyes and a softened expression. Something curious, too.

“Good,” George hums. Reaches out to brush some stubborn stray locks out of Harry’s forehead. They fall right back into place. “Smart of you.”

“Yeah,” Harry breathes out thinly, his pulse thrumming in his veins as he feels George’s hand slide down behind his ear and halt at his neck, watching him closely. Harry’s voice comes dreamy and far away. “Would be a mistake to— to try and—“

“Exactly,” George nods and pulls him in the last few inches to brush his lips against Harry’s in an infinitely gentle kiss.

It’s a careful thing, all hesitant and new and heart-fluttery, but Harry doesn’t want it to end, so he kisses back, relishes in more of this relieving, freeing feeling in his chest. They fall into a slow push and pull and Harry’s hand rests uselessly on George’s waist, holding onto the fabric, while George’s thumb rubs comfortingly up and down Harry’s nape.

He smells so nice, Harry thinks stupidly. Like herbs and oranges and safety. 

When he lets a tiny gasp slip and tugs George closer by his jumper, George smiles against his lips, right into the kiss. Holds him a bit tighter, too.

They get torn out of their little bubble when Pigwidgeon comes home from one of his nightly adventures and hoots a greeting while flying over their heads, towards the burrow.

They’re both a little breathless when they part to look at each other and Harry’s chest might explode with giddy, nervous feelings, but he does his best to control them.

George smiles at him, a tad dazed.

“Could do this all night long,” George says.

“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Harry bites back a cheeky grin. “Do you?”

“Nope.” George grabs for his wand to finally cast a warmth spell around them, making their frozen muscles relax and a comfortable sleepiness settle in their bones.  
“Yours for as long as you’ll have me.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much the first time I have written for this fandom, so I'm still kind of warming up... but i have vague ideas of making this a series of short fics or start a seperate series with More Pining and Plot. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!! (and feedback means the world to me!!) ♥


End file.
